October 1, 2011

Bill Clinton, seemingly preening about himself, takes a devious shot at Obama.

This article, "Bill Clinton wants more credit" is topping Drudge under the heading "I want more credit." But let's see what's really going on here. Midway in the piece, there's this quote:
"I’m telling you this to point out that we need a coherent narrative... The No. 1 rule of effective politics, especially if the people you’re running against have a simple narrative — that government is always the problem, there is no such thing as a good tax or a bad tax cut, there’s no such thing as a good program or a bad program cut, no such thing as a good regulation or a bad deregulation — if you’re going to fight that, your counter has to be rooted in the lives of other people...."
So... he wants stories and anecdotes, not a countervailing simple message?
"We need to understand that one of the things that tends to tilt things toward the Republicans’ anti-government narrative is our country was born out of a suspicion of government... King George’s government was not accountable to us. That’s what the Boston tea party was about. When the tea party started out, at least they were against unaccountable behavior from top to bottom. Then it morphed into something different. If you want to go against that grain, you’ve got to tell people you understand it’s a privilege and a responsibility to spend their tax money, but there’s some things we have to do together. And that’s what the purpose of government is, to do the things that we have to do together that we can’t do on our own."
Of course he's right about the purpose of government. The real difference of opinion is about how gigantically huge that pile of "things" is. 
“If we can make that choice credible... then our candidates — starting with the president — and our principles will be fine."
Make it credible....  In other words, get people to believe that the Democrats have a better definition of the things that we can't do on our own that are therefore the purpose of government. That's all! Just do that. Basically: Okay, now, there's your big idea from me. You figure out the details.

If we start at the top the article, we see that he was mostly talking up his own story, his accomplishments, the details from his time, when it was his privilege and responsibility to spend other people's money.

Bill Clinton has explained the big idea — "it’s a privilege and a responsibility to spend [the people's] money, but there’s some things we have to do together" — and each leader in his time must work out the details. And Bill Clinton would like you to know/believe that he did a fabulous job with the details, and life was pretty good back then. If the same Democratic vision of a broad role for government is going badly now then it's the fault of the man who now has the privilege to spend the money, the responsibility to choose the details, and the task to "make that choice credible."

111 comments:

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Democrats love their narratives.

How about results instead?

Bayoneteer said...

Bill Clinton is a political genius. That's how he toppled an incumbent president and won re-election in landslide (in electoral votes anyhow) and won acquittal at his impeachment trial. BHO has none of those qualities that make BC the man he is.

Fred4Pres said...

As Rush points out, Bill is just as socialist as Obama. But the difference is Bill recognized that it was in his interests to triangulate.

I am not sure Bill is a "political genius". Of course he is a master politician in the skills of working a room, listening, etc.--but that does not make you a political genius.

Winning the election was certainly related to skill but also being in the right place and the right time. The impeachment trial was poorly thought out and the country really was not into a constitutional crisis over a blow job and what was perceived as lying to one's wife about it (granted it was more than that).

Bill "genius" (if you can call it that) is a certain shrewdness that allows him not to believe his own bullshit (other than enjoying the glow of his own ego). That is the difference between him and Obama.

Fred4Pres said...

Bill Clinton is a lot smarter (in street sense) than the Bushes or Obama.

Titus said...

I pinched two glorious loafs today.

Bells Rang.

And I sang like Madeline Kahn when she was getting fucked by Frankenstein.

edutcher said...

Willie wouldn't know credible if it jumped and smacked him in the puss.

He pushed an illusion of peace and prosperity and the centralized media backed him up.

Willie ran the country from the Left in the first 2 and last 2 years of his Administration and Dick Morris told him he'd get re-elected and stay out of jail only if he'd do things Morris' way for the middle 4.

KenK said...

Bill Clinton is a political genius. That's how he toppled an incumbent president and won re-election in landslide (in electoral votes anyhow) and won acquittal at his impeachment trial.

No, he had a very compliant media little different from the one of the last 4 years and enough RINOs in the Senate who were willing to be bought off.

Genius, my foot.

Fred4Pres said...

I am not sure Bill is a "political genius". Of course he is a master politician in the skills of working a room, listening, etc.--but that does not make you a political genius.

It does, however, make you a sociopath, just like GodZero.

PS Remember I quoted Hillary saying, "Clintons have long memories"?

Here's where the get even part starts.

Bender said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bender said...

if the people you’re running against have a simple narrative — that government is always the problem, there is no such thing as a good tax or a bad tax cut, there’s no such thing as a good program or a bad program cut, no such thing as a good regulation or a bad deregulation
_______________

Yes, before there was the army of Obama strawmen, there was Bill Clinton, doing the exact same thing. Which is why it was imperative that Clintonism be crushed and destroyed.

Slick Willie is no different than Obama in his reflexive twisting of facts and disingenuous arguments.

Hagar said...

It strikes me that when the Democratic candidate has been an awoved liberal Democrat, and the voters are aware of that, such as with Stevenson, Monadle and Carter, the result is a landslide victory for the Republican candidate - even Nixon in 1972.

Psychedelic George said...

Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now!

Suess wrote the book with Nixon in mind.

Too bad the old master is not around today.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I can't believe I voted for Clinton in 1992.

Ned said...

Clinton's legacy: Made it OK to get a blowjob from girls ur daughter's age...as POTUS...in the oval office!!! And his wife said "Cool with me"
Rock solid liberal legacy...

Tim said...

"Make it credible.... In other words, get people to believe that the Democrats have a better definition of the things that we can't do on our own that are therefore the purpose of government. That's all!"

This is true, but it doesn't lead to the answer the Democrats want.

The thing we have to do, must do, that we can't do on our own is cut the federal debt that is cannibalizing our future. The Democrat plan of eliminating the Bush tax cuts does not do this; it does not even come close. Nor does making the 1% of taxpayers who earn 25% of total income but pay 40% of total income tax pay more - unless somehow you think private investment depends upon lower income earners. Obama's "health care reform" does not even "bend the cost curve" for health care, it does not even do so for Medicare, but it sure as hell adds tremendously to future expenditures without any identified revenue source to pay for it.

The only credible choice is start with significant reductions in federal expenditures; the Democrats, for whom every problem requires a government response, and whose electability is vitally dependent upon transfer payment programs to cement voting blocks, are fundamentally, unalterably unable to do this.

Most voters, Democrat ones especially, will not recognize this until it's too late. The fairy tale of living on other people's money is more important to them than the future of America.

Titus said...

It's October 1 and that means dogs are now allowed on the beach!

Yea!

We are heading out to be one with the ocean.

Whenever my rare clumber is on the beach his loafs are huge. I am not sure what it is. Maybe the salt water?

Mark O said...

I love it when he ministers to young people.

MayBee said...

He is right about the way taxpayers are treated/spoken about currently. Those paying the most are spoken about as "greedy", not paying their "fair share", and only sit around "counting their money".

I know policies are paramount, but I do have friends who really can't stand Obama (who voted for him) because of the way he talks about *them*. They way he communicates does make a difference, I think, in making him unpopular rather than just making his policies questionable.

Bender said...

Trial in the Senate??

What trial in the Senate? There was no trial in the Senate. It was, from first to last, intended by Trent Lott, et al., to be a total farce. And it was.

edutcher said...

What Bender said. All of it.

And Ned.

And Tim.

Mark O said...

I love it when he ministers to young people.

Satan did the same thing with Eve.

Anonymous said...

I had the Oktoberfest Saturday brunch with a hottie from K-street POTUS supporters' group. What I heard is that Clinton is concerned, very concerned, that he is finished. Once POTUS wins the easy re-election, then who cares what Clintons' (both) will think? No one will ask their opinion. They are scared. In fact, the word is that they more scared than the GOP, who are about to get defeated everywhere.

J said...

the teabuggers love narratives too--like that Reagan outperformed Clinton economically. Even a cursory glance at the actual numbers falsifies that narrative. In terms of the usual indicators --GDP, employment, median income--the Clinton admin. was an improvement on Reaganonomics

Jason (the commenter) said...

And he instituted DADT! Is he preening about that?

Hagar said...

Sorry, I got rattled from Google doing a number on me again.

I meant Stevenson, McGovern, and Mondale.

Carter was less obviously a "liberal," more of a technocrat knucklehead subject to attacks from homicidal rabbits.

Fred4Pres said...

A little bit biased Daily Beast? This is something you call bullshit on.

gerry said...

Clinton is that best friend who sucks the energy out of you to make herself feel better about herself while pretending to offer you advice.

You can see the psychic knives in flight towards Obama.

gerry said...

Herself?

Himself.

Fred4Pres said...

Americo's Politico, really? Republicans are going to lose big across the boards in 2012? I would agree Bill wants to be relevant. But the rest of that has as much use as one of Titus' pinched loaves.

Glad you had brunch with a hottie, though.

Tank said...

Clinton is still pissed off that Zero out conned the Clinton con machine in the last set of primaries (and he played a major role in losing - remember that great moment when Zero played the race card against Billy - LOL)? Omigod, that was sweet.

J said...

Time to mumble eh Fred4Pres,the LDS suckpuppet. Yr too stupid for political discussion, dreck. Get that Nursing AA and start over.

William said...

Wise men, such as Clinton, do not waste their lives seeking the truth when the credible serves just as well--even better in some circumstances. The truth is something that is exposed; the credible is something that is narrated. Interesting that someone with such a reputation for mendacity as Clinton would choose to lecture Obama on credibility.

J said...

Note all these little bogus s-names--no blogs, no posts, no info.--making trivial pro-TP brainfarts. Byro, the psychotic LDS sockpuppet, strikes again.

edutcher said...

Tank said...

Clinton is still pissed off that Zero out conned the Clinton con machine in the last set of primaries (and he played a major role in losing - remember that great moment when Zero played the race card against Billy - LOL)? Omigod, that was sweet.

And long overdue. The original hubbub over Gennifer Flowers wasn't because Willie was fooling around, it was because the state job he got for her was going to go to a qualified black woman.

Jason (the commenter) said...

And he instituted DADT! Is he preening about that?

Lessee...

He told homosexuals in LA when he was campaigning, "Ah have a vision fer America and y'all are part of it".

Then he tried to do what Congress just did, but backed down when Congress and the Pentagon fought him and came up with DADT.

And most people today still support DADT.

So,... prolly.

dave in boca said...

Zero is still a POTUS elected by a majority rather than BJ, who won the moniker "Plurality President" twice. And thank God for the Electoral College or we'd have had a certifiable moron as Prez in 2000.

glenn said...

Slick only misses the part about getting elected in 1992, proposing a massively bureaucratic system of universal health care and getting his ass handed to him in the mid terms. To his credit he moved to the center and and rode the Regan/Bush1 momentum to two reasonablly sucessful terms. Leave out "enhancing" Fannie Mae and building the "Gorelic Firewall" that led to 9-11 and Bill really was the big cigar on the playground.

cassandra lite said...

Adding in the word "privilege" along with "responsibility" is a real tell.

J said...

Speaking of brainfarts,it's Educita , the Alt-tard brainfarter-in-chief. Put on your white sheet and get down with yr bad self, Edu the klangrrl.

pm317 said...

..that government is always the problem, there is no such thing as a good tax or a bad tax cut, there’s no such thing as a good program or a bad program cut, no such thing as a good regulation or a bad deregulation...

This was his big clue on what not to do. Mock all you want, Althouse. Bill Clinton is smarter than you give him credit for. A smart gal like you, why do you think you're his audience?

Kirk Parker said...

"And that's what the purpose of government is, to do the things that we have to do together that we can't do on our own."

So close, yet so very far away. The purpose of the federal government, at least, is to "do the things ... that we can't do on our own" that we have previously agreed on as being of federal concern! Clinton completely ignores another possibility, which is maybe we don't need to do some of those things after all. As it stands, his quote sounds way too much like that infamous "the purpose of government is to regulate what needs regulating" quote.

Hagar said...

It also strikes me that as this premature campaign season moves along, the mood in the MSM is less and less about "Democratic principles" and more and more straightforwardly "us vs. them" - the South Side gang vs. the North Side.

Bender said...

Um, Hagar -- those ARE the Dems' principles.

lemondog said...

Clinton walked into a recovering economy. That made him a ‘genius.’

Clinton had Greenspan goosing the economy with his easy money policy.

And today we have the Greenspan legacy.

veni vidi vici said...

There he is: Bill Clinton, he uncontested all-time master of the "us and them" narrative structure. So smooth and yet so infuriating for some.

I've never been a terribly huge fan but one has to hand it to him; he's got that like no other.

J said...

Clinton often worked with Gingrich and Gramm-- as with de-reg, and the dismantling of the Glass Steagal act. The supposed great divide between GOP and Dem's another part of the teabugger narrative ,ie fairytale. Say grazi to the...Demopublicans for the mortgage crisis.

Methadras said...

John Lynch said...

Democrats love their narratives.

How about results instead?


No, democrats love their secret bigotries and how they get to use them against the lesser people for their own gain, especially if they are a colored zebra who identifies himself as black and as a victim who's wife is for the first time proud of her country because they picked her husband the second black president because Bill Clinton was the first.

ricpic said...

When has Bill Clinton not been devious?

Methadras said...

Hagar said...

It strikes me that when the Democratic candidate


Can people please stop saying democratic. They are democrats. They are not democratic.

n.n said...

The Republicans are not "anti-government". They are opposed to superior or exceptional dignity, and the progressive corruption which they engender.

At least he concedes the point that construction of government should begin with limited power. He also concedes the point that there is great responsibility in managing and profiting through involuntary exploitation (e.g., taxes).

The difference between people acting in good faith is the definition of "reasonable" compromise.

It is granted that compromise underlies the establishment and development of society. It is further granted that we all benefit when we aid others who momentarily falter. It is also granted that some enterprises are uniquely suited to centralized direction (e.g., road works), if not outright execution (e.g., security).

It would be ideal that government be restricted to oversight of private affairs. It would be further ideal that redistribution occur entirely through voluntary exploitation (i.e., economics, charitable donation and works).

The principles that form our foundation are individual dignity and the inherent value of human life. Any enterprise, but especially one with a granted authority (e.g., government), should be formed and managed in order to optimally preserve both.

The civil servants have not demonstrated a unique ability for "right thinking". Since they have progressively failed in their role as moderators, they have confirmed that competing interests in a market-based economy are superior to the limited, circumstantial knowledge which they possess.

Clinton is right and wrong. His success arose from competing interests keeping his ambitions in check, and he theirs.

Jason (the commenter) said...

edutcher: And most people today still support DADT.

No, most people don't support DADT, which is why the media likes asking Republican candidates about it. It's a winning issue for the Democrats, one of the few they have, and one they were reluctant to take.

It's ironic that Obama's stance on gay issues aligns with the majority of Republicans and they get branded as bigots.

MayBee said...

Can people please stop saying democratic. They are democrats. They are not democratic.

Yeah, but the people who call conservatives "teabaggers" get really offended when you call them the "Democrat Party".

I'm Full of Soup said...

Narrative schmarrative message schmessage. What a crock- the American people are onto this maneuver no matter which party uses it. We are fed up and just want them to start by fixing one thing then fix another and so on.

Wince said...

In other words, get people to believe that the Democrats have a better definition of the things that we can't do on our own that are therefore the purpose of government. That's all! Just do that. Basically: Okay, now, there's your big idea from me. You figure out the details.

What I noticed about Bill Maher's roundtable of all liberals last night was that they weren't so much interested in defending individual initiatives taken on by the government in the taxpayers name. The closest they came was saying you should expect losses of public money in making needed investments in solar energy.

Instead, they were reduced to challenging the sanity of anyone not going along with whatever it was BHO proposed.

Good luck with that "strategy."

ricpic said...

What has Clinton ever said or done that you consider credible, William That he took credit for the things he was dragged kicking and screaming to the table to sign by Newt & Co. That makes him credible?

Bender said...

re: DADT

In fact, most people just want to be left alone.

They do NOT want to Ask.

They do NOT want you to Tell.

It is not their business, is what the vast majority of people think.

I'm Full of Soup said...

N.N. said:

"At least he concedes the point that construction of government should begin with limited power."

You are being too kind. Clinton is best when reading the latest polls and even a lib like him sees the Tea Party wave is about to crush his fellow Dems for a 2nd straight election. And the crushing is due to the people's rejection of their librul policies. It is not because they have a bad message or a fuzzy narrative.

J said...

the TP might have some success in fly-over zones. In CA, or NY or most blue states, they will be crushed--as will be Tex Perry OR Nerdnik Romneyski

Anonymous said...

Barack Obama is the kind of liar Bill Clinton wishes he could be.

Carol_Herman said...

What's so strange about that?

He wants obama to be beholden to him ... in reaching "certain parts of the base." It seems obama ain't interested.

And, ya know what? Have you ever heard Jimmy Carter's opinion about the "bent one?"

Anonymous said...

Barack Obama is a significantly better liar than Bill Clinton. Obama never steps out of character. His latest work involves a "school of lies" technique, packing so many demonstrable lies into every speech that fact-checkers and opponents just can't keep pace.

edutcher said...

Jason (the commenter) said...

edutcher: And most people today still support DADT.

No, most people don't support DADT, which is why the media likes asking Republican candidates about it. It's a winning issue for the Democrats, one of the few they have, and one they were reluctant to take.


Right. That's why they're pushing same sex marriage, as well.

The only reason we're hearing any of this is because the Demos are so afraid of losing big next year, they're pandering to every special interest constituency they can find.

Fact is, some young people - who apparently have been snowed into the idea as much as 25% of the population is homosexual - are for it, but every time the people vote on issues like this, it's shot down.

It's ironic that Obama's stance on gay issues aligns with the majority of Republicans and they get branded as bigots.

Only if you count the media and the Democrat Party as the final authority.

Carol_Herman said...

You can call the opposition "socialist" if you want. Free country. Two parties in opposition.

On the other hand?

One side loses. (The way the south got devastated by the Civil War.) Which, because it hurt them so much ... they politely refer to as "the recent unpleasantness."

Up ahead? Tony Blair's reputation gets ripped to shreds.

Maybe, that's why Bill Clinton is still looking for a "spotlight gig?"

Hillary, however, does not look to have sex with her husband! They haven't "done it" in decades! And, whatever infertility problems Hillary had (on her own, separate from Bill's low to nonexistent sperm count.) It seems Chelsea's got that type of a problem, too.

Is it possible that "infertility" gets inherited, in spite of the fertility clinic's efforts?

Nate Whilk said...

Slick Willie said, "When the tea party started out, at least they were against unaccountable behavior from top to bottom. Then it morphed into something different."

"...morphed into something different"? What is he talking about?

J said...

"Slang: the grunt of the human hog"(Bierce)

grunt on, Alt-hogs

avwh said...

There's a lot of narrative dissension and disappointment all of a sudden among the Dems.

Seems most them smell a big-time loser in 2012, and since it CAN'T be liberal policies, it HAS to be the poor execution of those policies. Ergo, Zero is a zero even among the former hero-worshippers.

So now Clinton can pile on without repercussions from most of the left, because they're abandoning the Zero too.

Roger J. said...

The cynic in me agrees with the professor--this was a veiled shot across Obama's bow. That damned 25th amendment. I suspect Mr Clinton wants to be democratic kingmaker, and given Mr Obama's conduct in the primaries, I dont think there is any love lost between WJF and BHO.

Time will tell.

Cedarford said...

Bubba - " if you’re going to fight that, your counter has to be rooted in the lives of other people...."

And that is why Bill Clinton was a decent President post-1994. He was grounded enough himself in the lives of real people and had enough executive experience dealing with lives of other people as Governor - that he agreed he and his Administration had veered so far left he abandoned most Americans from 1992 -1994.

Obama is a rootless Cosmopolitan with an exotic, affirmative-action boosted life surrounded by faculty types, political consultants, and power-thirsty ideologues with law degrees.
His wife doesn't ground him either...with a basketball star for a brother...she left her middle class home upbringing for an affirmative action fueled elitist life before she was even a teen. She developed a massive sense of entitlement.

Consequential Presidents like FDR through Nixon understood people and their aspirations. Ford was too long in DC, Carter clueless. Then Reagan has his ear in tune with the People. HW Bush not so much. Then Clinton did. Then we had not just two small men and bad "Deciderers", but were also cursed with opposition candidates that were also out of touch and a miserable alternative - Gore, Kerry, and McCain.

The last 12 years have left us where we really can't afford a bumbler because our nation is in decline and threatened with even deeper decline. Free trade has meant a ravaged US economy and China replacing us as the preeminant nation, the creditor nation - in 5 or so more years.
The same problems though, have left us where we can't afford another President with the weak resume of Obama to "inspire us" - even if they are "Palinesque,Christie-like...In Touch With the Lowly Masses".

America needs fixing, and a barely qualified figure on the right throwing out the red meat to Base followers like Obama did - is not the answer.

Roger J. said...

Pardon consecutive posts: Mr Clinton was smart enough read polls and election returns--I dont think Mr Obama has that degree of smarts--Running a Harry Truman 1948 campaign isnt going to work that time--although Mr Obama's campaign will include the race card as part of "the narrative."

WV: babino--the curse that felled the red sox yet again.

Astro said...

Clinton was brilliant enough to have a Republican-controlled House and Senate his last 6 years in office to make him look good. They controlled the spending and held the reins on regulations.
"GENIUS!"

G Joubert said...

Fred4Pres @10:50

The impeachment trial was poorly thought out and the country really was not into a constitutional crisis over a blow job and what was perceived as lying to one's wife about it (granted it was more than that).

Yeah, but politically it's all relative. Put GWB into that same fact sequence, getting serviced orally by his 23-year old intern right in the Oval Office, diddling her with cigars, leaving semen stains on her blue dress, then lying about it under oath in a deposition, and then lying about it on TV, looking right into the camera with all of America watching and saying, I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky." Plug Bush into the exact same story in place of Clinton, and he'd have been impeached and convicted, slam dunk. And while that's especially true when it comes to Bush, it's not only Bush. It's true of any Republican president. Put Bush's father, Reagan, Nixon, any Republican president into these facts, and they'd have impeached and convicted too. It's the double-standard and hypocrisy of the left.

Blair said...

I've never understood why the Democrats have such a hard time selling their message. How hard is it to come up with variations on "Free money for everyone!"?! And yet somehow they manage to screw it up...

Hagar said...

Clinton was charged with contempt of court, fined, and lost his license to practice law for lying to a Federal judge in the Paula Jones case.

Monica-gate was all about "optics"; it was not a court cae.

sorepaw said...
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sorepaw said...
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sorepaw said...
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Automatic_Wing said...

There is no "seemingly" about it, he's preening about himself and taking a devious shot at Obama at the same time.

Also, great strawmen. I love it when these oh, so reasonable Democrats talk about how the evil Republicans will repeal all regulations and taxation if they're elected. So scary!

traditionalguy said...

The Democrats learned from the German psychologists how to frame an alternative back drop and then make it become a perceived reality.

Using this method means that there is no such thing as truth and fiction. They seek a relationship with myths. Focus groups are the tools used to create the words needed control the subconscious minds of men and women.

What they fear is words of truth being told in public by a person they cannot discount as Stupid or a Nut case.

Thank God for the internet.

sorepaw said...

Obama is a rootless Cosmopolitan

I didn't realize that Cedarford thought Barack Obama is Jewish.

But I'm sure he knows all of the code phrases Stalin used when he was getting ready to imprison or kill Jews.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Why is NYT printing this review? This is a hatchet job of the otherwise most successful Presidency (and soon to be re-elected with ease).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/books/review/confidence-men-by-ron-suskind-book-review.html

Anonymous said...

"The 42nd president said Arkansas had been a test case for reform during his governorship. At the federal level, he said 43 states received federal waivers to implement welfare reform before the GOP-controlled House passed the final bill."

Fancy that. Clinton sings the praises of Federalism. What a surprise. I didn't know "Federalism" was in the Democrats' lexicon.

David R. Graham said...

"In other words, get people to believe that the Democrats have a better definition of the things that we can't do on our own that are therefore the purpose of government. That's all! Just do that."

Another way to put that: regulate to expand the common power and meaning; do not try to define, control or drive the common power and meaning towards a pre-determined outcome. Let power and meaning surge outward from the common - it will do this on its own, without stimulus - and canalize them to maximize themselves. Do not even dare to define an outcome for the power and meaning of the common authority.

The size of government is not a problem. That will vary with the size of population and land. The problem is, what is the government doing with whatever size it is?

Government's role is regulation of the natural hubbub of life for the common good, which means for expansion of the common power and meaning. Government is not meant to define, control or drive the common authority towards a predetermined outcome, even and especially when that outcome is presumed to define the common authority. The common authority is its own sovereign expressed through its own hubbub. Government is its servant, part of the common's hubbub, tasked with expanding the power and meaning of the common authority by regulating its hubbub.

Government stands within the hubbub of life interacting with it, regulating it for expansion. If government officials or bureaucrats think to stand outside the hubbub of life and away from the common, with authority to control or direct it, war will remove those officials or bureaucrats from government.

lemondog said...

They controlled the spending and held the reins on regulations.

Controlled spending? Receipts exploded and debt still increased by $1.7 trillion.
Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2000

Federal Receipts
1992: $1+ trillion
2001: $1.9 trillion

Federal Debt
1992: $4 trillion
2001: $5.7 trillion

Of course by current standards it is a model of restraint.

Mark O said...

@J,

“the LDS suckpuppet.”

Love it when in your inimitable, sophisticated, droll style, you mock another’s religion.

No one takes on the merits of an argument quite like you.

Bender said...

Monica-gate was all about "optics"; it was not a court cae.

The Monica Lewinski affair was part and parcel of Clinton's obstruction of justice in the Paula Jones lawsuit and the use of his entire Administration to deny Ms. Jones her right to her day in court.

In the Jones sexual harassment suit, Clinton made his own character an issue, insisting that he didn't sexually harass Ms. Jones because he had never fooled around and would never fool around. Thus, his fooling around with Miss Lewinsky was relevant on the merits and also to impeach his credibility, to show that he was not only a sexual predator, but also a liar.

It was the truth-averse, spin-everything Dems who sold their souls to defend him and absurdly claim that the Lewinsky affair "was just about sex," and that "it really wasn't sex anyway," that "oral sex isn't sex," and "that depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is." Then again, not every Dem sold his soul -- some, like Begala, never had one to begin with and still have not acquired one.

But while so many were so willing to crouch down and Lewinsky Clinton themselves, it doesn't look like too many are willing to turn around and bend over for Obama.

BJM said...

Who cares what former POTUS have to say?

Like Carter and Clinton before him, Obama will never go away, not as long as there is a buck to be made or an honor to be awarded.

Think on that.

Issob Morocco said...

Maybe Bill was playing golf with the One to get some good feel for how to capitalize on the One's political demise.

Nichevo said...

You know, just for the record - correct me if I'm wrong please - the lying was in fact about MONEY. The greedy bastard. If he had told the truth it would have been embarrassing (to any normal man) but also he might have lost the Paula Jones lawsuit.

If he wanted to avoid perjury all he had to do was settle out of court with the usual gag-rule let-me-look-like-a-winner-getting-back-to-the-people's-business provisions. We had that whole mess because he was unwilling to drop, oh, a few hundred grand on Jones. Marc Rich or King Fahd or whoever would have provided. I don't think that makes him such a hero or wise man or savior of democracy.

If you're not going to whack her - which I would have understood, commoners shouldn't trouble the sovereign like that - paying off is the statesmanlike thing to do. I don't even ask him to keep it in his pants let alone to honorably resign, let's be real, but to ask us to acquiesce, to collude in his corruption verges IMHO on treason.

Oh, fine, nitpickers, maybe that's small-letter-T treasonous, not "true" Constitutional TREASON with aid&comfort and 2 witnesses - but as close as you like. Whatever synonym for "treason" means "scummily contributing to the demise of our Republic" is what he did.

Fred4Pres said...

Put Bush's father, Reagan, Nixon, any Republican president into these facts, and they'd have impeached and convicted too. It's the double-standard and hypocrisy of the left.


Probably true. A Republican would have resigned if caught doing that.

Gary Rosen said...

"I didn't realize that Cedarford thought Barack Obama is Jewish.

But I'm sure he knows all of the code phrases Stalin used when he was getting ready to imprison or kill Jews."

That's hook-nosed rootless cosmpolitan Trotskyist Zionist neocon wire-puller to you, SIR!

jeff said...

Clinton ran for re election, promising to fix the welfare reform the Republicans made his pass. Now his claim is that welfare reform was his idea and the Repubicans had nothing to do with it?

J said...

C4--agree for most part, but one could argue Clinton actually..moved to the right as his admin. progressed. By the end of his admin--while ..the economy was doing alright (apart from the scandalous BS, and Kosovo, etc)-- he was in effect approving of the Gramm-Gingrich GOP de-reg program across the board--ie which had a direct relation to the economic problems of BushCO and BO-Co.

--sorepaw aka LDS Suckpuppet, you just don't know how to read, nor do you know what falsification is, Nursy flunkie. And you never have lucid moments, wicca trash. Get that AA, dreck

Lance said...

Bill Clinton is a political genius.

He failed at government-run health care, got his hat handed to him in 1994, beat a peripatetic good ol' boy in 2006, benefited from the tech boom, and spent the last four years of his Presidency dodging scandal after scandal, and was ultimately impeached.

Good at winning elections is not the same as "political genius".

J said...

beat a peripatetic good ol' boy in 2006

Hmmm. How did Clinton do that, sockpuppet, since his term ended in 2000? Maybe your
crack just kicked in.

Note Bender with the official...Roody Giuliani crypto-mussolini perspective. Nothing like the one issue cafeteria catholics (ie, the A-word). Even JPII opposed you

Michael Haz said...

Bill Clinton was a genius for cleverly losing the Democrat majority in the mid-term election, then pushing back the campaign threat from the young and powerful Bob Dole.

Then he got disbarred.

Michael Haz said...

If Bill Clinton were a compassionate and responsible man, he'd look at the train-wreck of a life Monica Lewinsky has had to live because she provided him with oral sex, and privately, through third parties, reach out and help her find work.

Maybe he'd even put the burden of her public humiliation on his shoulders so it could be taken off hers.

If he were a compassionate and responsible man.

Skipper said...

See if I understand him. The "narrative" is "We can spend your money better than you and you will be grateful." Is that right?

Ralph L said...

Have the major Democrap constituencies been that badly hurt by the Great Recession and Obamanomics? That is, relative to the rest of the country.

Cedarford said...

sorepaw said...
Obama is a rootless Cosmopolitan

I didn't realize that Cedarford thought Barack Obama is Jewish.

But I'm sure he knows all of the code phrases Stalin used when he was getting ready to imprison or kill Jews.

=====================
"Rootless Cosmopolitan" is actually a very good phrase. Deny that it doesn't fit Obama perfectly.
It fits other groups quite well, and European nationalists and others resentful of the EU ministries have used the phrase to describe unaccountable EU Elites that sneer at loyalty to any one nation and proudly show their "internationaist" resumes - as Rootless Cosmopolitans.

As for Stalin - he won out in the power struggle against the Jewish Bolsheviks in the 20s. But he retained Jews in large numbers as influential policy makers, drafters of his death lists, administrators and agents of state security and the Gulag system. In 1931, he made anti-semitism punishable by the death penalty.

A greatly disproportionate percentage of the political commissars that drew up the industry and military death lists during the Great Purge. The Yezhovshchina, was of course headed by the Jewish Yezhov - also known as the "bloody dwarf". He was replaced by Beria, a less bloodthirsty but still awful monster.
Under Yezhov, about 1.2 million people were thought to have been executed or to have died a slow death in the Gulags.

Many Jews of course were killed by Stalin and the Jewish and Russian agents of State Terror. But later, while he eagerly supported Israel thinking it would be a satellite nation thanks to the large number of communists...when it became clear it wasn't to be and Zionism swept through a portion of Soviet Jewry - Stalin and others in Soviet leadership began questioning the loyalty of Jews to the USSR around 1952 in strong terms.
He talked about purges, a Jewish nationalist plot doctors were supposedly prominent in, and deporting the Jews to the Far East - but historians do not see Stalin as going out of his way to target Jews right up to the day he died.

Gary Rosen said...

" historians do not see Stalin as going out of his way to target Jews right up to the day he died."

"historians" defined as fevered brain-damaged douchebags a la C-fudd. There is a photo of Fudd urgently fellating the bloated dead body of Stalin (Fudd was alive and well back then in 1953 despite his claims to be younger) entitled "You had me at 'the Doctors' plot'"

The Crack Emcee said...

So... he wants stories and anecdotes, not a countervailing simple message?

Anything but facts, logic, and reason,...can't have those. Nobody demands them, nobody expects them.

But they expect things to get better without them.

Rubes.

Charlie said...

All this from a guy who jerked off in the Oval Office sink.

Andy Freeman said...

> And that’s what the purpose of government is, to do the things that we have to do together that we can’t do on our own."

Umm, no. There are many things that we can't do on our own that govt shouldn't do. There are many things that we'd have to do together that we shouldn't do.

For example, govt shouldn't give loan guarantees to campaign contributors even though that's something that we can't do on our own.

Actually, those of you who want to give such guarantees can, without govt. It requires govt to use my money for that purpose.

SukieTawdry said...

By the end of Bubba's tenure, we had bubbles bursting and markets crashing and were in recession. His vaunted "surplus" was manufactured with the same borrowed money he used to "balance" the budget and our national debt had increased by $1.4 trillion dollars because we had a spending deficit every year he was in office (although to everyone's credit, the deficit did steadily decrease until Clinton's final budget when it took several giant steps back up).

The guy we saw his first two years in office was the real Bill Clinton. That guy wanted to fundamentally change our country with great leaps forward like universal health care. After the '94 elections, we met the pragmatic politician who was more concerned with his own political skin than with ideology.

Clinton does a lot of talking and most of what he talks is trash.

george said...

Not sure how this guy can show his face in public without being excoriated for the CRA and resulting crash. With a single regulatory change he nearly ended a Republic over 200 years old.

Neither Obama nor Clinton would qualify as a genius. But they do have a certain appeal amongst people of low character and low intellect. That will take you far in politics.

Their message is simple. If you vote for them they will steal things for you. They count on your venality to do the heavy lifting. Bill is slightly more sophisticated than Obama or Hillary because he knows to lie about it. I am not sure whether that makes him better or worse.

These leftist icons' only talent is the one that every two-bit grifter has... they can make you feel justified in doing what you know is wrong.

Think I am exaggerating? Al Gore has convinced millions of people to not only sit in poorly lit and heated hovels but to agitate for force to be used to make sure everyone else does as well. That is, everyone else but Al "Planetary Savior" Gore who will make sure that he profits tremendously from your sacrifice.

Really, what more needs to be said?

Erik Robert Nelson said...

"Bill "genius" (if you can call it that) is a certain shrewdness that allows him not to believe his own bullshit (other than enjoying the glow of his own ego)."

Of course he believes his own bullshit. That's what the entirety of his speech consisted of. Bullshit. Clinton still thinks he was responsible for all that late 90s prosperity, when if the GOP hadn't taken congress in '94, there is no telling how much trouble there would have been. There certainly wouldn't have been surpluses. What made the 90s prosperous was a burgeoning information age and the gridlock imposed by divided government. Clinton's policies had virtually nothing to do with it.

Ron said...

Hagar, "even Nixon?" Nixon would have beaten any Democratic candidate in 1972, didn't matter if he was liberal or not.

Anonymous said...

I've got your narrative. Here's your narrative, I've got your narrative right here.

TeamOSweet said...

Clinton gets the credit for being lucky -- for happening to be the president when the Internet exploded and vast amounts of investment flooded into America from overseas and Alan Greenspan kept interest rates low to keep the music playing and everyone dancing because (remember?) it was a ... New Economy.

DRJ said...

I think Clinton (and Althouse) are right -- politics is simple. Democrats want government to spend taxpayers' money and Republicans want taxpayers to spend their own money. Democrats focus on anecdotes so taxpayers will forget how simple it really is.

Seeing Red said...

Bubba sold us down the river to the Chicoms.

Bruce Hayden said...

One thought - that this is a way to signal to other Democratic politicians that they can safely distance themselves from Obama, and maybe even dump on him, if it will help them.

Clinton is in a weird position here - his wife works for the President, but might his family might have a chance at reoccupying the big house on Pennsylvania Ave. if Obama goes down or pulls out long enough before the election - but as we see on the Republican side, something needs to be done fairly soon, due to primary filing deadlines. Unless, he thinks that they could slip Hillary! in without a primary challenge. After all, if Obama ultimately bails, who else could step right in there (I am, for now, ignoring Joe Biden, for obvious reasons).

SukieTawdry said...

OSweet said...Clinton gets the credit for being lucky -- for happening to be the president when the Internet exploded and vast amounts of investment flooded into America from overseas and Alan Greenspan kept interest rates low to keep the music playing and everyone dancing because (remember?) it was a ... New Economy.

And don't forget the "peace dividend" derived from the collapse of the Soviet empire. A New Economy and the End of History. ('Course, by the time the Cold War ended, the new war had already begun, a war Clinton pursued with something less than due diligence.)

Does anyone else find this commemoration of the anniversary of Bill's announcing for the presidency odd? As historic events go, that one's got to be near the bottom of the list.

Nichevo said...

Cedarford, you animal, could you try to suck on a damned fact once in your damned miserable life? Just to get a taste?

Yezhov was not Jewish. His predecessor Yagoda was, but Yezhov, the "Poison Dwarf," made Yagoda look like a tyro. Really enjoyed his work, a sick man. IIRC his demise was worthy of his life.

BTW, it might amuse the assembled to know that at least in his Wiki photo, Yezhov's physiognomy looks uncannily like President Obama's.

Seems like every time you mention an actual fact you get it wrong. Or lie, whichever. I guess Gary Rosen was right about you.